A lawsuit filed late Sunday in federal court in San Francisco claims the Trump administration ended the program known as "temporary protected" status for immigrants from Honduras and Nepal because of racism, according to NBC News.
Last year, the White House announced it would be ending the program for Honduras and Nepal.
Honduras qualified for the program after a devastating hurricane hit the Latin American country so there are 86,000 immigrants from the country who have TPS status.
Nepal was designated for the program after a 2015 earthquake so there were also 15,000 who had TPS status in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.
Having TPS status allows the immigrants to live and work in the United States, but after the Trump administration's announcement, nearly 100,000 may be forced with deportation.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six immigrants and two of their American-born children and alleges the Department of Homeland Security altered how it was evaluating conditions in the countries after disasters to determine if it was safe for the immigrants to return.
"We bring evidence the Trump administration has repeatedly denigrated non-white non-European immigrants and reviewed TPS designations with a goal of removing such non-white non-European immigrants from the United States," said Minju Cho, a staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Los Angeles.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit live in California, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, and Virginia.
A federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the U.S. government from ending the program for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan last year.
That lawsuit also cited Trump's recent description of their countries after reports emerged which said the president referred to Haiti and several African countries as "sh*thole countries."
The Washington Post was the first to report on the quote, citing a Democratic aide, who said Trump also included insulting El Salvador during his tirade.
Trump questioned: “Why do we need more Haitians, take them out."
When the group started discussing immigration from Africa, Trump then asked why American should want those immigrants in lieu of places like Norway.
The U.S. has granted temporary protected status to citizens of countries who are damaged by natural disasters or war so they can work inside the U.S. legally until their home country improves.
The status is only provided for a short-term but is renewable so some immigrants have raised American-born children inside the country, have bought homes, and spent most of their adult life in the U.S.
Critics of the TPS program argue it was never meant to be extended for that long.
The lawsuit says there are more than 50,000 American-born children would be affected if the program ended.
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Honduran citizen Donaldo Posadas Caceres, who came to the U.S. just before the major hurricane in 1998, and his 9-year-old daughter who live in Maryland.
"She dreams of growing up to be President because she wants to help people who come here from other countries," Caceres said in the lawsuit.
Last week, 22 attorneys general filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a show of support for the TPS programs and to help prevent the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people with TPS.
The brief called on the court to uphold the nationwide injunction which blocks DHS from ending the TPS designation for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan.
“Deporting TPS holders in Maryland, and beyond, does not serve the public interest,” said Maryland Attorney General Frosh “These deportations would cause irreversible and harm to families, our workforce, and the individuals who would be returned to countries in the midst of crises and widespread violence, where their lives could be seriously jeopardized.”
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Damian Dovarganes
